天国はで穴を投稿 From a Hole in the Heavens
by Transii
Summary: The heaven-sent arrival of the future in the past diverts the inevitable to a different path; this time, the elegy shall not play. Chapter One: それ降伏! Give It Up!


それ降伏! Give It Up!

* * *

It was exactly like he'd said, earlier, and he can't help but revel in the utter correctness of the statement.

"I can't even rest in peace, can I?"

No peace. Chaos. Utter chaos, even in what should be the calm after the battle.

All around him, nothing but the strange water from the sky (it washes over Gurren like some kind of twisted baptism ritual; what was it that Rossiu had explained it as? Death into a second life...) and and his comrades' (Are you alright?!) voices (Bro! Bro, please, no! Kamina!) and the crash (No! NO!) of those distant volcanoes (they're like me, you know?) that light up the sky like he wants to do for Simon.

No, not just Simon. The Dai-Gurren Dan and everyone the hell else with us...!

Ain't that right, Simon?

Static and the rumblings of thunder are the only things he hears and the roaring in his ears increases.

(Bro!)

Ah, well.

Beggars can't be choosers, he supposes; so, neither can a mortal choose his life. Or apparently, when to let it go. But of course-- Kamina is different. He sighs. Leans back in his seat. Lets go of the controls. Lets his body relax.

But he doesn't give in. Not just yet. The fact that he can linger even in death appeals to him greatly. A man's soul, burning fiercely all the way... Kamina fights.

He's not ready to give in yet. He never has. He never plans to.

Kamina has only given in to two things in his life.

Firstly, he's given in once (and only once!) to fear. The moment he regretted the most gave him the strength never to back away from fear again. This was the heart of his courage, and absolutely the thing he wanted to instill in Simon; just as his father had instilled this in him. Never again did fear impede him from anything in his path.

And secondly, he's given in to a person-- no, to himself. An offshoot of himself. His feelings, perhaps, but because he's too manly to call it that he decides to give it a more ambiguous title: emotion. He gave in to emotion, namely in the form of attraction to a certain girl. But this he does not regret in the least.

He finds it mildly interesting that both times he has given in to things that are technically figments of himself. Fear is a thing of the mind, obviously; and what is emotion if not the most personal expression of the individual?

In the end, the only thing left to give in to is himself.

That scene, that one, one and only memory flies fleetingly through his mind delirious with pain and right now, surrounded by all this chaos, it's the only thing he can register. The past fuses with the present as his vision fades the two together. That figure, that hair, that coat, that collar--

_You died... you didn't wait!_

He hadn't, but this one is. A dim figure impedes his vision and within it another shadow: a hand. It draws near, impatient to reach him, just like but completely opposite of before when he was impatient to get away--

"Kamina!"

He wonders if this is the way his father died. Irony loves situational similarities; he'd like to think that his father died a heroic death, but all wants and likes aside he doubts the circumstances were willing to permit the kind of fall he imagines his father to have taken--

The hand reaches him at last and grasps his shoulder, causing burning needles of pain to lance through his side.

A flare of annoyance consumes him for an instant. _Who the hell do you think you are, grabbing me like that?_ And he almost says it too. It's like second nature to him by this point. In the end it doesn't matter that he almost said it though, because the lung that was stabbed through has finally bled to suffocation; he can feel the lifeblood streaming from that wound and the countless other, smaller wounds that split his skin like valleys on the surface ground. The inner fire that briefly invigorated him seeps away like the blood leaking through the valleys.

And what little breath he's got left issues from his lips in something only a little more than a hiss of air and yet so much less than what he wants to convey to this enigma that remains before him--

"Dad...?"

Ah, but a man can only hold out for so long.

Kamina finally fades, still unwilling to admit that he has given in to death.


End file.
